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First Mead, Wish Me Luck!!!!
Well I have scratched a little equipment together and I am attempting my first mead. Tell me what you think. This is to be a 3gal batch of sweet mead so here what I did. Please feel free to add any tips.
Started out with 2gal of tap water brought to a medium boil and added 1/2Tsp cinnamon, 3 whole cloves, a pinch nutmeg & a pinch ginger and let boil for 10min. Then added 12.5oz pure Maple syrup and 5lbs pure Clover honey and finished out the boil at about 1 hour. All the while skimming off any foam that came to surface. Removed from heat and whisked with a hand blender for 25 minutes and allowed to cool for 1hr. Whisked again for 15 minutes then added to carboy, added yeast activator and nutrient (1/2 recommended doses) and topped off with cold water. Pitched yeast (Wyeast sweet Mead Smack pack prepped 6 hours ahead of time and added a little must for the last 3 hours) at 78 degrees and capped. I am using a 1/2" blow off line to bleed off pressure and the end is in a container with a bleach water solution. I tried getting an OG with a refractometer I use for my saltwater aquarium but it didn't read. I am getting about 4 bubble a second at this time (3rd day) and the whole mess looks very active. I will let set until everything calms then I will rack to my secondary at which time I will add another 12.5oz Pure Maple, 2 cinnamon sticks, lemon zest and orange zest. This will sit in the secondary for 2-3 months then I am going to bulk age 1 gallon for another year and bottle the rest using pure Maple as a priming sugar. How does this sound to you guys???
Day #4
Bubbling has slowed to a steady 1 bubble per second. The carboy looks very active still and there is a 3/4" layer of lees settled at the bottom. Should I shake it up every few days to stir up the whole mess or just let it sit??? I am also considering bringing up the temp a tad since ambient room temp is around 65F.
Sounds spicy! I wouldn't bother shaking it up in the fermenter, you could introduce off flavors due to oxidization and your wyeast packet should do fine for a sweet mead. I think your temps are fine too. Sounds like it is fermenting just fine and will continue to do so for quite a bit longer than your typical beer. I would let it sit until visible signs of fermentation stop and then rack to a secondary for a month or so.
For future reference I would advise that you do not boil the mead. There are a couple of reasons for this:
1. If you are using store bought honey, it has already been pasteurized and does not need it.
2. Boiling drives off the flavor components from the honey leaving you with sugar.
3. Boiled mead is said to take longer to mature.
When I make meads, I generally use Pasteurized SueBee Clover honey that I buy in 5lb bottles from Sams Club for about $6 as my base and then add to that a varietal, or flavoring such as Maple. I start by standing my honey jars in hot water in the kitchen sink, while I boil the kettle for some hot water. I add just enough hot water to get the honey fully dissolved and then add a mixture of boiled water and RO water to get the final temperature of 80°F. I always do this in a plastic pail that is kept for Mead only because I see no point using a closed carboy until the primary has completed.
My most recent mead used the Lalvin D47 yeast, which gives a medium dry finish with a really full body. The Cyser and Maple Mead were fermented with (I think) Lalvin 1118 Champagne yeasts.
Thanks for the help guys. Everything is still bubbling along but has slowed to 1 or 2 bubbles a second. But it's steady. I'll just let it be until bubbling stops then I'll rack to the secondary.
Not a bubble in 24 hours. I am going to rack tomorrow and add 1 cup brown sugar (dissolved of course) along with the other secondary ingredients stated before. I got to looking at other sack mead/sweet meads and I look as if I am way shy on the honey so I hope the brown sugar will give it a little kick in the butt.
Time to play catch up........
First mead was racked 3 times. First rack was onto the zest and juice of one medium lemmon and one medium orange, 2 cinnamon sticks, 4 cloves, pinch ginger and a pinch nutmeg. Make up water was about 3/4 of a quart to which I added 1 cup brown sugar and 15.5oz maple steeped with three liptons regular tea bags. This stewed for two weeks and I racked for the last time with 15.5oz maple, cinnamon, ginger & nutmeg. I let this completely settle and clear and split it into three batches. One batch a bottled with priming sugar, one batch I racked onto 1 pound pureed blueberries and the last onto a 1 pound batch of pureed strawberries. I let that go for 1 week until I got tired of cleaning out my airlocks three times a day and strained the batched through layered cheese cloth. Everything chuggin along good. Tried a bottle of the bottle stuff and it's quiet good. A bit raw but good. I figure a month or two in the bottle with knock off the edges. As for the fruity stuff I will bottle straight away after this stuff clears. Now I need to figure out if it's to be still mead or carbonated.
I have a second batch in the primary now. Made with 12 pounds of clover honey!!! For 3 gallons. No boil, with cinnamon, nutmeg, ginger, 4 cloves and a healthy squirt of lime juice. I pitched with a dry champagne yeast this time vs a sweet mead yeast. Will let you know how it turns out.
brewski-n, have you tasted a bottle of the mead you bottled up in mid-june?
The Blueberry is a potential bottle bomb!!!!!! It's way too carbonated. It's pretty dry with a tart finish.
The Strawberry is a tad tangy and completely still. If you ad a teaspoon of sugar to one pint at drinking time it is awesome.
I snuck in a batch of sweet under the radar and it is by far the best yet. It used the same ingredients minus the maple and I upped the honey to 4 pounds per gallon.
I'll have a peach mead going this weekend. Just as soon as my honey arrives and I get a good yeast starter.
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